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gluten free, egg free, chickpea flour chocolate cake

It’s no secret that the essence of the Jewish holidays is food. Yes, it is a big deal. Each holiday has it’s own traditions, rules, restrictions, and expectations. We love to make a fuss and we love to eat.

So Passover is around the corner, and the basic rule is that leavened bread and any product that is fermented or can cause fermentation may not be eaten, including five grains: wheat, rye, barley, oats, and spelt. Why? because, life is not easy, just as it was not easy for the ancient Israelites who ran away from Egypt, and didn’t have time for gourmet food.

So when I stumbled upon a bag of chickpea flour, I had a eureka moment. What if, what if, what if I can bake a cake with the… hummus flour?! It’ll work for Passover. Well, I decided to explore. I found many recipes for some pancakes, flat breads, veggie burgers, and such. Nope, not satisfying. I need a cake. Based on the interesting fact that I did find– this flour can substitute the use of eggs, I decided to be brave, and try to bake a simple chocolate cake.

just one slice ???

The reported results of the experiment: three very happy children who loved the cake.

greased 9″ round cake pan. I used the spring-form one. A square pan will also do.

2 cups chickpea flour;

half cup sugar, or if you’d rather keep out of sugar, use Raw honey, or stevia, but feel free to adjust sweeteners according to your sweet tasting buds (most cake recipes call for 1.5 cups of sugar, but we don’t like it that sweet);

1 tsp baking powder;

1 tsp baking soda;

2 Tbsp good quality cocoa powder;

100 gr/3.5 oz of good quality dark chocolate bar (I use 85% and up cocoa);

2/3 cup olive oil;

1.5 cup water.

how-to:

heat oven to 350°f.

combine all dry ingredients together, and mix well.

chocolate cake dry ingredients

pour olive oil and water into the mixed flour, and whisk slowly together, until smooth and all the flour dissolved.

break the chocolate bar into a microwave-safe glass dish, and melt in 20 second time segments, mixing it between each time, until chocolate is uniformly smooth and liquified.

add 1 Tbsp of the batter into the melted chocolate, mix together, and add all melted chocolate back into the batter. mix well together.

mixing chocolate with batter

pour the whole mixture onto greased pan, and into the oven it goes for 35 minutes. Don’t expect a high cake, this one’s a shorty.

notes:

the kids did recommend, however, to add chocolate chips. since the cake is bit on the drier side, that could be a good advice.

when adding the water, you may notice that you need a bit more than 1.5 cups. you want to have a smooth fluidish batter.

you may need more than 35 minutes- all depends on your oven.

yes- some add ice cream on top, some add frosting. I just like to dunk it in tea. the kids like it as is…

I did a test run last week … came out great! I am making it again now, hope to make it looks a little like a bear, so we’ll see how that goes. I added more sugar this time as I could taste the olive oil a bit the first round. Thanks again!

So good to hear of your success, Jennifer!
You could always cut a bit on the olive oil – or use other kind of oil instead, and add sugar or maple, or even use the sweetened cocoa powder.
I guess my family is used to the olive oil taste.
Here’s a little secret- when i have guests coming- I do add more sugar..🙂

It was so good – I upped the sugar a bit and used lighter olive oil, and it had the kids coming for seconds. No one believed it was healthy, and I loved that my son got eat cake on his birthday! =) Thanks again.

You know what- the reason I got the chocolate recipe was because I explored and tried. The flour may have a bit of a dominant taste, but maybe you could set it off with a little honey/sugar? I love the combination of lemon and poppy seed. How about you try it and let us know? I’d love to learn something new🙂

I made this as specified the first time except with Splenda instead of sugar, and it was pretty good, but I used cheap, highly aromatic olive oil and I could taste it when it was baked (though my boyfriend couldn’t and loved it once I put some unhealthy frosting on it, haha). It was also a little dry, as warned. The second time I made it, I substituted the olive oil with unsweetened applesauce, and it was pretty much PERFECT. I used a cup of Splenda and with the applesauce it could probably use a little less (I thought a cup was perfect with the olive oil but my boyfriend prefers sweeter; he hasn’t tried the second version yet!), but it’s very moist and the chocolate flavor is light but tasty and covers up the chickpea taste very well. I can’t believe something that’s gluten-free, dairy-free, low-sugar, low-fat, and with starch low on the glycemic index, tastes so good!!!

Just made this and it was delish! The bitter chickpea batter had me worried but end result is a MOST perfect chocolate cake. Using ingredients I had on had, I skipped the chocolate bar, used 2/3 cups cocoa powder instead, opted for coconut oil, used 3/4 cups (ish) coconut sugar and and 8″ cake pan. If you’re on the fence about this recipe, just go make it, it’s awesome. A million thanks for posting this recipe!

I made the cake! I followed everything to a T except I only used 1/3 cup olive oil and I substituted 1/3 cup of maple syrup for the sugar. I found the cake a tiny bit dry and had bit of a strange aftertaste due to (I believe) the chickpea flour (first time I ever used it)… so I made an avocado/cocoa/soy milk/vanilla/maple syrup pudding and used it as “frosting”… and I loved the end result!! The pudding made the cake more moist and hid the strange aftertaste. Will definitely make this again… thanks so much!!🙂

As for the dryness: It has been suggested before, that perhaps try and add some apple sauce to the olive oil, to make it more moist.
As for the frosting: I also add that from time to time. Only, I use a whole package of 70% chocolate, with a little bit of water (heat it carefully and spread over cake).

How do you make the pudding to be eaten as a pudding? Will you share?🙂
thanks for your comments, best !

Thanks for the recipe! I used coconut sugar instead and turned out so great as cupcakes! I topped it with tahini icing (just tahini, sugar or honey and almond milk to thin it out) and my kids loved it. Now I don’t feel so guilty giving them cake.

Good day! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it’s new to me.
Nonetheless, I’m definitely happy I found it and I’ll be bookmarking and checking back often!

You are most welcome. I have come a long way since that recipe, and no longer use any refined industrial sugar, but rather maple syrup or raw honey or even just chopped dates…
I also use coconut milk for almost anything🙂
Thank you for the comment! Enjoy

This is the first cake I ever made in my life and it was sooo easy. We had a few hiccups as I made the batter slightly fluidish, it started leaking out of the tin and i had no other tins to use so I used a bread tin haha.
It came out nicely (considering it is my first time) but I will learn and improve. I think the chocolate was a bit too much (I’m guessing you love dark choccie🙂 I used 75%, next time I will use a bit less.
I was thrown in baking as my 15 month old has egg and dairy allergy so no shop bought bread, My husband makes steam bread sometimes but it is never enough.
Thanks again for sharing your recipe.

Wow Vivian, So glad it worked out for you. I’m sure it’ll only get better as you add more things that you like- maybe applesauce?
And the steamed bread sounds very interesting too. I’d love to hear about it, if you care to share.
Thanks!! Ayelet

I have made this cake twice – once with choco chips and yesterday with walnut chunks and both the times it turned out fabulous! I have a very happy toddler and husband loving this cake. Also, to my surprise my husband also couldn’t tell it from other all purpose flour cakes. Thanks for sharing the recipe.

This came out perfect and lovely! I put 1 cup of sugar instead of half. I however didn’t cook it long enough (it was in for 45 min), so it has come out like a half baked brownie, but it is still lovely! Next time I will probably let it cook for an hour. Thanks so much for sharing this.

HI,
Massive thanks for this recipe. as this is my third week without all sugars (to starve my yeast which I am intolerant to) and cant remember when I had a chocolate or any desert (I have a long list of food intolerance) I started climbing up the walls. And then I found this recipe. i had to change it a bit. I used coconut palm sugar, couldn’t use chocolate so added extra tablespoon of coconut palm sugar, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 more tablespoon of cocoa. I also added handful of chopped roasted almonds. I baked it for extra 5 mins. Its LOVELY. I just had two pieces – and I don`t feel guilty. Take this leaky gut!

So glad I found this as we had dinner guests and had totally forgotten I had used up the wheat flour. Made these in little ramekins and used rapeseed instead of olive oil, and they were well received. Will definitely make again.

Thanks so much for this – I use gram flour (chickpea flour) a lot, but never knew it could be used as substitute for eggs. WHilst I have no allergies/intolerances, many people who I love do, and a colleague’s daughter is allergic to eggs, and doesn’t like cakes made with vinegar (the most common egg substitute). Hoping to be able to try this out and see if this might be something she’ll try!

So happy to have found this recipe. I’m going to try using orange infused olive oil and raw cacao and maple syrup as we try to eat clean. Might try with almond milk instead of water too. Not sure what the equivalent weights are for the American cups, but I’ll try to work it out.

I made this cake it came out really good to avoid flour taste in cake,slightly heat the flour in microwave like Luke warm let it cool down and start the process .heat the flour in the interval of 30 sec

Thank you so much! I’ve recently had to cut wheat and sugar and have eaten a series of pretty awful ‘alternative’ cakes – ranging from solid as concrete to powdery monstrosities. This recipe was absolutely brilliant made with xylitol. For me the sweetness was perfect and texture delicious. I can’t quite believe there’s a chocolate cake I can eat!